Publishers have the greatest responsibility in preventing publication bias. By requiring that any study that is to be published in their journal had been registered before in pre-clinicaltrials.org they can indirectly ensure that also negative data will later be accessible. Even better of course if they would increasingly publish negative data, even if they contradict papers previously published in their own journal.
Editors can engage with us on their preferred procedures on trial registration and documentation. Currently we provide one unique study identifier for each deposited independent dataset.
Investigators need to register as full members and sign a digital MoU in order to deposit data and analyze deposited data. A maximally 14-month hold may be put on deposited data if IP is to be secured.
We considers that providing free online access to research data is the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of the research can be accessed, read and used as the basis for further research and clinical translation. In that respect we fully support the guidelines of the European Research Council: https://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/ERC_Open_Access_Guidelines-revised_2013.pdf